Process of joining leather and joint made thereby



W. GIBB.

PROCESS OF JOINING LEATHER AND JOINT MADE THEREBY.

APPLICATION F|LFD1uNE.19|a` 1 ,$35,830. Patented Apr. 6, 1920.

wlrlvEss Y MW v By ATTORNEYS UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

WALTON GIBB, 0F PHILADELPHIA, PENN SYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR T0 ALEXANDER BROTHERS, 0F PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

PROCESS OF JOINING LEATHER AND JOINT MADE THEREBY.

Specification of Letters Patent.

s Patented Apr. 6, 1920.

Application led June 6, 1918. Serial No. 238,525.

To all whom t may Concern:

Be it known that I, WALTON GIBB, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the city of Philadelphia, county of Phlladelphia, State of Pennsylvania, have invented a certain new and useful Process of Joining Leather and Joint Made Thereby, of which the following is Va specification.

This invention relates to a process of j oinL ing leather and the joint made thereby, the predominating feature of which consists in so cutting one or both of the strips of leather that the adhering portions thereof, particularly the end portions of each adhering section, will consist of a certain character of leather fiber having particularly efficient adhering qualities due to the greater tensile strength and body of certain parts of leather as compared with that of other portions of a usual strip of leather made from the whole hide.` It is well known that a piece of leather has, generally speaking, 'three transverse sections, namely, an outer layer or grain section, an intermediate body section and a flesh section, and in the usual type of joints two strips of leather are cut in a beveled manner and the surfaces so formed are secured or cemented together with the result that the fibers of the surface and body at the extreme end of one of the sections are made up entirely of the {iesh section of the leather strip. The joint at this point is therefore relatively weak due to the character of the fibers which are less tough and less closely lmit together than in the body section of the strip and in view of the fact that this section comes at the tip end of the joint where the stresses operating on the belt when passing over a pulley, for example, are greatest, the efficiency of the joint as a whole is greatly impaired.

It is the object of my invention to overcome these disadvantages in the known type of joint constructions contemplating broadly the process and the joint made thereby of connecting strips of leather in such a manner that the adhering section of one of the pieces will be composed of the tougher bers, as a body section of the leather, rather than the flesh section thereof. Various methods could be utilized for carrying my invention into practice and various types of joints could be constructed with this essential feature incorporated therein, and, moreover, both strips of two joined pieces may be so cut as to have the same character of leather throughout their ad-l joining faces, if desired.

In the drawings there is shown certain methods for reducing the invention to practice but itis to be understood that the invention is in no way limited to the several embodiments of the method and joint shown therein but that the invention is thus shown merely for the purpose of illustrating how the invention may be carried i'nto effect.

Referring to the drawings, Figures l, 2 and 3 represent one method of reducing the invention to practice wherein Fig. l represents a sectional view of one piece of leather; ig. 2 a similar view of another section and Fig. 3 shows the two sections joined together. Fig. 4 shows a modified method of carrying my invention into effect while Fig. 5 shows a still further modification in which certain portions of one of the strips are cut away on both sides of the strip in contradistinction to the methods illustrated in Figs. l to 3 inclusive, and Fig. 4 where only yauxiliay strip of leather B, shown in Fig.

2, is adapted to be joined to the strip shown in Fig. 1, the strip B being also shown as having the grain section 3, the body section 4 and the flesh section 5. The strip B is cut' preferably diagonally at 7 across each of these sections on a somewhat more inclined angle than that of the surface 6 of strip A, making the surface 7 somewhat larger than the surface 6 for la purpose as will hereinafter appear, although this feature is not essential to my invention. Near the point 8, which is the intersection of the diagonally cut surface of the strip B and the upper portion of the flesh section 5, the section B is cut away along the line 9 to remove the esh section of the leather from the end of the beveled cut surface 7. The surface 9 may be made to merge gradually into the exterior surface 5 of the iesh section 5 by cutting away the flesh section slightly along the line 10 as indicated in Fig. 2. It is to be understood that the strips of leather may be cut as indicated either by machine orby hand and it is also to be understood that the lines indicated on the drawing are merely suggestive of the general way in which the strip may be cut to carry my process into effect and that in actual practice these lines may be greatly deviated from and still so cut the strip of leather as to present an adhering surface composed of the tougher fibers of the leather, as the body section thereof. Moreover, by cutting the Y line 9 from a point on the beveled surface 7 somewhat nearer toward the center of the leather strip than the point 8, the result will be to form the entire body of the free tip of the tougher fibers of leather instead of forming' merely the surface thereof from such fibers.

The two strips of leather are cemented together along the beveled faces 6 and 7 The surface 7 having been originally somewhat larger than the surface 6, is made substantially the same length by the cutting away of the flesh section, as indicated, and the surfaces contact throughout, and it will be seen that the adhering surface of the face 7 is composed of the body section 4i of the strip B which extends to the extreme point 8 of the beveled face. The advantage of this construction, resulting from the process disclosed, is illustrated in Fig. 6. A leather belt is usually run with the grain surface to the pulley yand in direction of the large arrow in F ig. 6 so that the point 8 of the section B lies on the outside portion of the belt and by reason of the same being composed of the tough, closely knit, stronger fibers of the leather of the body section, for example, this point 8 adheres firmly to the face 6 of the other section of leather and resists any tendency for the point 8 to lift out in the direction of the small arrow shown in Fig. 6 as the belt passes over the pulley. Moreover', this construction overcomes the tendency of the loose fibers of the flesh section of the leather to fray out at the end of the joint which immediately begins to aid the tendency of the use of the belt to cause the tip of the joint to be pried away from firmly adhering and securely united contact with they surface to which vit adheres and the result is that an efficient joint between the two members is insured.

In Fig. 4: a slightly' modified construction.

is illustrated wherein the rearwardly extending cut 9. from the beveled face 7 of the strip B is loca-ted on a considerably less acute slant than the cut 9 of the embodiment shown in F ig. 2. l

In Fig. 5 a further modication of my invention is illustrated in that both the grain sections 3 and the liesh sections 5 of both of the strips of leather are cut away so that the coacting faces 6 and 7 are composed entirely of the body section of the leather. j

Having thus described my invention, I claim and desire to protect by Letters Patent ofthe United Statesl. The process of forming ya leather joint consisting of beveling the ends of two pieces of leather to a fine edge' from the flesh side toward the grain side of one piece and from the grain side toward the flesh side of the other piece to form opposed surfaces, cutting said second mentioned piece from its flesh side toward .its beveled surface adjacent to its extremity and securing. said pieces together in superposed relation along `said beveled surfaces. A

2. The process of joining two strips of leather which consists in forming a beveled surface on one of said strips, said beveled surface extending from the flesh side to the grain side thereof, forming a beveled surface on the other of said strips, said surface extending from the grainside to the flesh side thereof, -removing the flesh section of said first mentioned strip adjacent the bevevel extremity thereof and joining said strips with said beveled surfaces in super posed relation.

3. rlhe process of joining two strips of leather which consists in forming a beveled surface on one of said strips, said beveled surface extending from thev flesh side to the grain side thereof, forming a beveledy sur' face on the other of said strips,said surface extending from the grain side to the flesh side thereof, 'removing the flesh portion of said first mentioned strip to expose al portion of the body fibers of said strip adjacent the beveled extremity thereof and joining. said .strips with said beveled surfaces in superposed relation.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this ith day of June, A. D. 1918.

. f WALTON GIBR.

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